In the movie "Sugar," Dominican baseball players try to make it to the major leagues in the United States. It's not a comedic romp like Bull Durham. It's a stark depiction of what foreign basebally players face in trying to make it to the big leagues.

For any whiffs that "Sugar" takes from hardball reviewers firing critical heat, no one can call out its timing.

Baseball season's upon us and, with "Sugar," writers/directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck pour salt on sweet notions romanticizing the national pastime.

Don't expect anything as comically uplifting as Kevin Costner in "Bull Durham," mystical as Robert Redford "The Natural," inspiring as Dennis Quaid in "The Rookie," or gut-wrenching as Robert De Niro in "Bang the Drum Slowly."

The reality check of "Sugar" can be hard to swallow. This baseball movie strips away rags-to-riches dreams of Hispanic hopefuls who dream of fame and fortune in the U.S. major leagues.

The fictional story is of a young pitcher from the Dominican Republic who's determined to hurl his way through the minors make it all the way to The Show, pulling his family out of poverty.

The odds — competition and society — stacked against Miguel (Sugar) Santos are huge. Miguel's a flame-thrower who complements his blazing fastball with a knuckle curve that breaks as though it fell off a table. Yet how many players from south of the border can do the same thing? Most end up playing in recreational leagues.

The movie stars Algenis Perez Soto as a Dominican Republic baseball player with all the tools, but facing an uphill battle.

That's where the filmmakers discovered Algenis Perez Soto, to play "Sugar." Not trained as an actor, Soto tried to make The Bigs as a shortstop. Didn't happen.

The realism that Perez brings to the hopes and heartbreaks of "Sugar" can't be faked. All obstacles thrown in his character's path ring authentic. He's been there.

So sheltered that he's never heard of the late Roberto Clemente, Miguel is assigned to a minor league team in Iowa. Surrounded by cornfields, he lives in the home of an elderly couple with whom he can barely communicate. In a restaurant Miguel can't manage to order anything but French toast, until a waitress offers the alternative of eggs.

Miguel and other foreign players "of color" are shunned by most of the whites they encounter away from the clubhouse. They fear suffering an injury that will get them cut and sent home, of hearing the last thing that any baseball hopeful wants to hear: The manager wants to see him in his office.

Suffocating in cultural shock, Miguel cannot hope to assimilate. His only other skill being carpentry, the best he can do is try to acclimate in a foreign place where, to him, nothing makes sense tthat isn't inside the chalked baselines of a ball diamond.

Lonely, homesick and suckered into taking performance-enhancing drugs, Miguel tries to take solace in a Latin teammate's assurance that, "It's only a game." Good advice for collegiate bonus babies who have grad school as a backup, but what about impoverished young men for whom baseball's their sole option for a better life? It's something to consider during the next drive to Grand Rapids to see the minor-league West Michigan Whitecaps play.

Boden and Fleck previously collaborated on 2006's "Half Nelson," a drama for which its star, Ryan Gosling, was nominated for an Academy Award as best actor.

"Sugar" won't do the same for Perez Soto, but his first start in the rotation brings some cheese.